Future Music

Had some thoughts on the way the Music Industry might be heading for a while now, feel to air out my thoughts on the matter. The Music Industry today is in a state of turmoil, although some people have said that it is in a state of 'transition'. I'm sure you would agree, music is a big part of our lives; it shapes our teenage years, dresses us (strangely sometimes!), changes how we think, our moods etc. Without music, I think our lives would be very grey indeed.

I listen to the radio nearly every day at work, normally turn on Kiss from 11 till 12 (Kisstory dun know!) and then Smooth FM until everybody leaves to keep them happy, and then for my final half hour or so I have a little boogie to SelectFM UK (HEAVYWEIGHT HOUSE, LIVE LARGE AND IN CHARGE!). The occasions that I do listen to chart music (Sonia does love a bit of Capital), I am amazed by the amount of crap that gets pumped out on a regular basis. I mean, it's not like the songs are unlistenable (let's hear it for neeeeeeew yoooooooork!), but nearly every tune I hear these days is a resample of another tune - if you listen to Smooth FM or another station that plays vintage music you will see what I mean. The female pop song arena is dominated by electronic beats and wishy washy synths, listen to any Lady Gaga or Saturdays tune and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about

The problem with popular music now is that it is that it is being produced for radio and tv i.e over compressed and boosted to the absofuckinglute maximum. While I was still in college, my recording teacher showed me something very interesting; he played a Led Zeppelin tune and showed us the graphic EQ compared to a Fall Out Boy tune and the difference in the dynamic range was astounding. Songs are pushed to the absolute limit so they can be the loudest on the airwaves. This all detracts from the overall vibe of the tune, there are no quiet bits to chill too or significant break and drops to go barmy to, it's just all straight in your fucking grill.

Let's talk live music. In my opinion, this is a shrinking market. It will never die out completely obviously, the amount of people who live and breathe rock n roll, indie, heavy metal and every other backwards arty fucking genre that you a fiddle with a guitar to is too large to ever let it die out. But personally, I am fucking tired of listening to some shit band from Coventry try and reinvent something that I've already heard (The Enemy anyone?). It frustrates me when shit bands get good, and I'm sure it hurts you too. The problem with the way bands get big these days is that labels don't look at the music, they look at the hairstyles and the clothes first and decide how they can spin it to make money (The Horrors anyone? I could go on). Image is more important than the music these days, although there are exceptions. It is these exceptions that I find myself listening to most often, bands who are big because of the music they have created, not the shoes they are wearing or who they are fucking. A good example of a band who have broken through on the strength of their music is the Whitest Boy Alive, there are others I'm sure but they immediately spring to mind. You have to wonder, why are 80% of bands these days shit? It's because 99% of the time they are following some kind of formula, either through image or ripping off someone elses tune. Granted, it is hard to make 100% original music these days, but I hear some songs which are nearly note for fucking note. Hell, I used to be in a band, and our first single was a sly cat of Iggy Pop's I Wanna be a Doll.

The internet has changed music permanently, there's no question about that now. Some say it's a good thing, others a bad thing. Personally I think it's a bit of both - the ease of finding and listening to a song, either legally or illegally means someone is Hawaii could write a ukelele banger, upload it to Soundcloud or something (wicked site) and I could be listening to it the next day. On the other hand, the ease and availability of music is detracting the quality of it, as shown by chart music today. This has been said before countless times, but I think the whole business model that the Music Industry uses needs a very good look-over. It pisses me off when you hear major labels whining and bitching about how much money they're losing, do you know how much fucking money they made before illegal downloading became common?! I think it's time for a change, in this modern environment, you don't need to be signed to EMI or Sony BMG to release a song, you can release it yourself! Indeed, independent labels, while they make next to no money, often release the biggest tunes. The ease of releasing a tune is relatively simple aswell, 9 times out of 10 if you've written a good, quality tune that is exciting and keeps people interested or dancing for 70% of the tune then if you approach a couple of labels at least one of them is bound to be interested.

There is a bit of a problem with this digital music age, in that there is so much fucking choice of shit to listen to that alot of it doesn't get listened to at all. I blame this partly on MySpace (remember?). I can't remember how many times someone linked me some piece of shit band to listen to, clicked on their page, listened to 30 seconds of their tune, got bored and turned it off. If you want to get a lot of plays on your MySpace, just make the first 30 seconds of your tunes really interesting. Someone said to me (I think it was my old teacher, good old Liz Penney!), that in the future we will all be listening to 1 minute songs, and to be honest I don't see that as too far off an idea. We would be able to fit more music into our lives, and at the hectic pace that we lead them it would make alot of sense.

You may not agree with my next point, but I don't care! I see the future of music becoming completely digital, not in the sense that everything is going to be blip blip blip, but everything will be run through some sort of effect or plug in to beef it up or something. The scope of what you can do in modern day DAWs (that's digital audio workstations such as Logic or Cubase for the computer illiterate) is fucking immense, you could produce anything you hear on the radio, it's just how you make it. If you want to hear some real future music, check out a guy called Bop. He's from Russia, St Petersburg, and I think his music is absolutely astonishing. Here is a link to his site (www.iambop.com), download the micromix, it's a minimix of all the tunes on his album. I love the way he can create a sense of space in his tunes, it's not really dancefloor material but definitely bedtime zoot music. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but just listening to it and trying to understand how half the sounds are created, you can tell alot of time and knowledge has gone into making this shit.

So to sum up, all pop music is shit, and dance music rules! Haha, not quite, but I definitely think there is going to be a major shift towards electronic music in the years to come, to be honest it's already heading that way. In the top ten this week, only 'Owl City - Fireflies' and 'Alicia Keys - Empire State Of Mind (Part II)' are live (obviously produced on a computer but you get my drift, it wasn't written on a computer). Anyway, this has taken the majority of the day to write, having flitted back and forth to Greggs in Lewisham and shit. Because of that I don't think I explained myself very well, when I read over it I'll probably think I was smoking crack or something, but fuck it, it's Friday, I've got the perfect weekend lined up and I don't give a shit! Love you all

More raving, more or less misbehaving?

James